Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart is an American actress and filmmaker whose two-decade career has produced multiple defining American film roles — particularly her five-film tenure as Bella Swan across the Twilight film franchise (2008–2012). She was born Kristen Jaymes Stewart on April 9, 1990, in Los Angeles, California, to John Stewart, a stage manager, and Jules Mann-Stewart, an Australian-born script supervisor. She started acting at age eight in minor TV roles.

Her film career began with David Fincher's Panic Room (2002, opposite Jodie Foster) at age 11 and Speak (2004). Her role came in 2008 as Bella Swan in Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight — based on the 2005 Stephenie Meyer young-adult vampire-romance novel. The Twilight franchise produced five films across 2008 through 2012 (Twilight 2008, New Moon 2009, Eclipse 2010, Breaking Dawn – Part 1 2011, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 2012) and grossed over $3.4 billion worldwide.

The 2012 conclusion of Twilight launched her post-franchise indie-film career. Her post-Twilight roles have included Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria (2014, for which she won the 2015 César Award for Best Supporting Actress — the first American actress ever to win the top French film award), Personal Shopper (2016), Charlie's Angels (2019), Pablo Larraín's Spencer (2021, in which she played Princess Diana — earning her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination), and Crimes of the Future (2022).

Stewart came out as bisexual in 2017. She has been with American screenwriter Dylan Meyer since 2019, and the couple married in 2025. Her 2024 directorial debut The Chronology of Water — based on the Lidia Yuknavitch memoir — premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Her name Kristen is a Scandinavian feminine form of Christian (from the Latin Christianus). Kristen rose sharply in American naming through the 1970s and 1980s.